Chamber and committees

We are aware that some manufacturers may be affected by difficulties with imported components. Other manufactures have stock availability and specialist retailers are also able to meet demand, subject to logistical challenges. However, I would emphasise that when the legislation comes into force, it says that work should be done within a reasonable period, which takes into account individual circumstances. No home owner will be penalised if they are unable to do the work by 1 February 2022.

The area of new woodland that has been planted as (a) commercial forestry, (b) agroforestry and (c) private/community woodland in Scotland in the last year, December 2020 to November 2021, is shown in Table 1. There were no grant applications for the specific agroforestry option, which is different from tree planting on farms. More than half of the applications for tree planting in private and commercial forestry were from the agricultural sector.

The National Centre for Resilience (NCR) whilst an independent body is fully funded by the Scottish Government, and works closely with it. In the past its remit had focused on natural hazards, but early in the pandemic it adapted its efforts into health resilience - bringing to bear its existing work on recovery to the particulars of the emerging threat.

The NCR was already working with the Scottish Government’s Resilience Development Service (ScoRDS) on recovery as the pandemic began. In collaboration with ScoRDS it had held a series of national workshops where policymakers, practitioners, and academics shared their experiences and the challenges faced when supporting communities through recovery from significant disruptive events. An initial findings paper was published. That laid very firm groundworks for recovery across sectors, and has also placed the NCR in an excellent position to continue to support those sectors.

Building immediately on this work, and following participation in the Scotland responders’ Covid lessons group in the summer of 2020, the NCR identified a need to help responders understand an evidence-based approach in order to not only recover, but to build back better. It used its networks to connect with the third sector responders and SG policy teams, to gain a clear understanding of new issues arising, and also how existing challenges were being amplified by the pandemic.

As a result, a series of symposiums were hosted - bringing together senior leaders in response organisations, academia, and policy teams in order to engage and identify cross sector ways to help find and deliver practical solutions, to improve and mitigate reported issues. Full reports on these symposiums were shared with all participants and have been published on the NCR website.

The NCR has also conducted literature reviews, looking at areas such as mutual aid and the role of the third sector through the lens of the pandemic, as well as mapping changes in policy in Scotland over the last ten years. Reports on these reviews will be published on the NCR website. Its staff and researchers continue to engage in a spectrum of activity across Scotland and the UK in support of the recovery from the pandemic, but also to understand how the pandemic has affected other aspects of resilience.

The Chair of the NCR Steering Group has also been invited to attend the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Post Covid Future Commission's Resilience Roundtable event on 19 January.

In summary, the NCR has been building its understanding and knowledge of the effect of the pandemic on its relevant audiences, as part of its ongoing strategic objectives. It has been seeking ways to collaborate and work together across sectors in order to provide robust evidence to inform policy. It has fostered ways to provide a gateway to networks of academics for government and responders, and it has identified the challenges and barriers that need to be addressed to promote and adopt the concept of evidence-based transformational change, in order to build back better across the wider resilience sector.

I responded to the Committee’s pre-budget scrutiny report on 23 December and my letter is published on the Parliament’s website.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04901 on
‎ 24 December 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Table 1 presents the estimated number of properties with a Higher Property Rate (HPR) liability in 2022-23, and the gross additional non-domestic rates income estimated to be raised in 2022-23 through the HPR, by property class.

Table 1 shows gross amounts and does not take account of reductions in liability due to reliefs awarded in 2022-23. This is in part due to the application of a £27,500 cap per ratepayer on retail, hospitality and leisure relief in 2022-23 which means that it is not possible to robustly estimate the breakdown of these figures by property class at this time.

Figures in Table 1 are broken down by property class as the Scottish Government does not hold data property-level on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and may not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

Table 1: Estimated number of properties subject to the Higher Property Rate, and gross HPR income, by property class in 2022-23

In order to ensure that relief is only awarded to eligible businesses who wish to claim support, retail, hospitality, and leisure non-domestic rates relief will be application-based in 2022-23, as it was in 2021-22.

Ministers granted permission (subject to conditions) on 21 December for the proposed Hoy and Quanterness wind farms in Orkney, on the basis that they are justified by their benefits, including their contribution towards the case for a new electricity interconnector to export renewable energy from Orkney to the Scottish mainland.

The decision letters are available to view at www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/Document.aspx?id=814579 (Quanterness) and www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/Document.aspx?id=814699 (Hoy).

The decision letters set out in full the grounds for the decisions. Ministers cannot comment beyond what is set out in the decision letters.

Interim arrangements are being put in place for the position of the Chair of Caledonian Maritime Limited, a formal appointments process will commence early this year.

Morag McNeil, current Non-Executive Director and Vice Chair of the Board of Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited, has been appointed as Interim Chair until 31 October 2022.

The Scottish Government is currently finalising its response to the consultation on a Sectoral Marine Plan for offshore wind for Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas decarbonisation (INTOG), which will be published in the first quarter of 2022 .